


The Only Precious Thing.

by Fran_fic



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Past Child Abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Slavery, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 08:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16594496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fran_fic/pseuds/Fran_fic
Summary: What is this precious thing...? It might not be what one thinks.





	The Only Precious Thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a small writing exercise.

The new boy was crying already being taken into the house. 

Under different circumstances, Pin might have felt sorry for him, but at the moment, he wasn’t able to. He didn’t know what he had expected, but the damn kid was beautiful, even with red eyes and a runny nose. 

Fair of skin, a lanky body that showed promise of broad shoulders and considerable height in the future; curls on his head the same color as the gold thread the lady of the house liked to sew into her robes… 

He looked down and crossed his arms over his chest, as the steward led the sniveling boy past him across the tiled kitchen floor, refusing to spare the new boy another glance.

“Poor thing”, one of the maids said as the steward closed the basement door behind him and the boy. 

“He’s so young!” said another.

Somehow, that irked Pin immensely. He spun around and scowled at them. “The sooner they learn, the better,” he snarled. 

They scowled back. “He’s barely in his teens! He’s a child!”

“He’s older than I was, and I’m just fine! If I could handle it, so can he!”

They didn’t seem to have an answer to that, only gave him pointed glares before turning back to their work at the sink. 

Pin returned their glares with a smirk and strode out of the kitchen, but he didn’t close the door properly and stayed with his ear to the crack.

“Did you hear that? He thinks he’s _fine_ ,” one of them said to the other. “That’s the joke of the day.” They laughed. 

Pin didn’t stay to hear the rest. The other slaves of the house always talked shit behind his back, it was nothing new, and nothing he much cared about… anymore. They were jealous of his standing in this house, he told himself, which they had no reason to be. Yes, they worked harder, yes, he had finer clothes and dangling earrings, but if they knew what it was like to serve their master in his private rooms every day, and night, envy would be the last thing on their minds. Oh, maybe they _did_ know, since they felt so sorry for the new boy, and it was only that they simply hated him.

Well, with this boy’s arrival, his inevitable fall would obviously be both swift and hard so they’d be pleased as punch then, he supposed. 

He walked up the stairs and into the ‘crack in the wall’; he was allowed to call his ‘room’. It was hardly big enough to stand up straight, or stretch out at night, but there was room for a tiny cot, a mirror and a small trunk to hold the few belongings he was allowed to keep. It was more than any other slave in this house had, and he did appreciate the privacy, even if in the end it was just an illusion. 

The space had neither a window nor a lamp, but as his door led straight into his master’s bedroom, which was in its turn flooded with light when the curtains were drawn, he left it wide open. It stole enough of his master’s sunlight to allow him a good look at himself in the mirror. He had to force himself not to immediately look away again. 

If his master had once thought his body also showed promise of height and width, the man had been up for disappointment. What was stunted in him, he didn’t know, but he’d never grown taller than five feet and four inches and was still quite delicately built. He was almost thirty, as much as he wished it; he would grow no more

He’d once overheard his Master answering a man who mocked the small stature of his bed slave that he much preferred this before a ‘fat one’. Since then he’d fought to preserve this thinness, which had been much less of a fight when he was younger. He’d be half as irritable, he thought, if he could just for _one_ day allow himself to gorge on leftovers the way the maids did!

The problem was, the older he got, the emaciation, which kept his body acceptable, was not as kind to his face. He looked older than he really was, he thought, gaunt, fine lines starting to appear around his mouth and at the corner of his eyes… He dipped his head down and let his long hair fall forward, studying it closely at the top, only to have a reason not to look at his face anymore. Thank goodness, it had not yet started to thin out. His hair was still thick, shiny and bla… Damn, another gray strand of hair? How could that be? He was not _that_ old, how could he already have gray hairs? 

Was it a wonder there was a new boy in the house? 

Pin turned from the mirror and shook his hair back, resisting the urge to pluck the gray strands to restore his hair to an all black once again. They were becoming too many; he would go bald in the end if he kept doing that. Maybe his gray hairs didn’t matter. He wasn’t only a bed warmer; he had other duties, as well. Maybe he wouldn’t have to leave this house, if he was only replaced in the actual bed, and not for the rest of his duties. 

Let the new boy choke on the master’s cock, _he_ could well live without it! 

Deep inside, he knew it was unlikely his master would keep the old whore around with the new one…

The sounds of footsteps in the hallway outside his master’s bedroom brought him out of his musings before he had a chance to panic over them. His master had returned and he had to see to his needs, even if it was only for a few more days. 

Pin had to take several deep breaths to gather himself before he was able to step outside his small space to greet his master. It would be a lie to say he had ever been a slave that seemed eager to please, but the added resentment he felt today made his steps more reluctant than usual. 

“Master,” he said, bowing deeply. 

It could be that this lack of proper eagerness would have earned him a punishment at least a few times in his master’s service if his master had ever acknowledged it. He never had, and he didn’t do so today either. The man tore off his wide brimmed hat and threw it in his slave’s face while pulling the gloves off, without once looking in his direction. 

More often than not, Pin caught the hat. On bad days, though, his hands remained at his sides, and he let it fall to the floor at his feet. Today, his master’s hat fell to the floor and he would have stepped on it, too, had he dared to. 

“Did you see the boy?” his master asked, still without turning, pulling a few things out of his pockets and tossing them onto the bed. 

“Yes, Master.” 

“So, what do you think?”

“He is… young.”

“Yes?”

“He is _too_ young!”

His master finally turned to him. “Oh, nonsense. If anything, they wait too long to train them these days. You weren’t much older, and you turned out just fine!”

He couldn’t answer; the resentment simply grew so large he wasn’t able to press out a single word. He didn’t know who he hated the most at that moment, his master, or that damn maid whose words he now found himself repeating while his master took _his_ argument right out of his mouth. He hated his own words when he heard his master say them, and he hated the fucking maid for getting it right. 

‘I am _not_ fine’, was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t say it. 

__Whatever was on his face at this exchange, his master only smirked. “He’s a lovely boy, but, alas, a complete innocent. I thought I’d have you inform him.”_ _

__Pin turned cold all over. Somehow, it had never occurred to him that he would have to be the one to train the boy, even though it would of course be the most practical, at least for the master. He recoiled at the mere thought._ _

__“You… You want me to… To show him how to… I’m not going to… I won’t do it! I- I won’t!”_ _

__His master’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly what is it that you ‘won’t do’?”_ _

__“Teach him to… to have sex… fuck him! I won’t do it, Master. I will _not_ have sex with that boy! I won’t! I…”_ _

__His master reached an arm out to grab him around the jaw in a crushingly hard grip, silencing him. “It just so happens, that for the time being, his physical innocence is to be preserved. I only need you to inform him in words… for now. _If_ I change my mind about this, _you_ will do whatever I want you to do to him. Is that clear?”_ _

__Of course, his master was correct. He was old enough in his master’s service to know there was never an option to obedience, and still, the wanted reply was so hard to form on his tongue and that not from the slowly hardening grip._ _

__He knew the resentment played out in his eyes, showed in his shaking hands, fisted at his sides, and that his master could feel it in the tenseness of his jaw, but the man simply waited him out._ _

__He admitted defeat soon enough. “Y-yes, Master,” he said, averting his eyes._ _

__The grip around his jaw loosened and was replaced with a tender caress. “Good boy!” his master said._ _

__Then the man unexpectedly bent over in front of him, picked up the hat and shoved it onto his head. “You ‘dropped’ my hat!” he said, a clear warning in his voice. “I suggest you don’t do that again, or I might break off a few of your fingers. You have ten; you can’t possibly need them all!”_ _

__The hat was much too big for his head; it covered his eyes and it turned dark around him. How long had his master noticed him occasionally letting the hat fall on purpose, and never let on? The hat slid forward and the purple ostrich plume hung over the brim and tickled him in the face, but he didn’t dare take it off. Slaves were of course not meant to wear expensive hats of finest velvet, plumes and jeweled buckles, but it seemed, for the time being, he was demoted to a mere hat stand._ _

__His master often did that, made him as small inside as he was on the outside, rather than punishing him physically. Pin shuddered and put his hands in his armpits, as if to try to protect them. It didn’t mean physical punishment was off the table, and he most certainly didn’t agree he could spare a few of his fingers._ _

__As humiliating as it was to be a hat stand, he was still glad his face was hidden. Fear and resentment raged within him and he was a damn fool who so often let it show. One day, this could cost him more than a few fingers. For his master, though, his toothless act of rebellion already seemed forgotten._ _

__The sight of his slave wearing his hat was apparently too amusing! His master laughed and pulled it off again. The man smoothed his messy hair down as a mother would her small child’s, and laughed again, pushing the hat into his arms instead._ _

__“Dust the hat off and tidy up in here,” he ordered, “and when you’re done, you will go downstairs and talk to the boy. Explain to him, and don’t scare him off it, I’m warning you! I’ll be in the study, report to me later.”_ _

__“Yes, Master.”_ _

__The man gave him a final smirk, and turned to walk out of his bedroom, humming the tune of an old nursery rhyme as he went. “Little boy, little boy, fitting on a pin,” he sang. “Fitting on the head, on the head of a pin! On the head of a… pi-in!”_ _

____

**\-----o0o-----**

‘…on the head of a pi-in…’ He hated it when his master hummed that stupid rhyme. It stuck in his head and kept taunting him for days.

He’d been ‘Pin Boy’ at first, people reciting the rhyme at him to tease him about his smallness. Then it was shorted to ‘Pin’ only, and finally he’d tired of resenting being bereaved of a real name and started to think of himself that way, too. He didn’t want to remember who he’d been before anyway. That boy was dead, and now, he would help kill another. 

His hate and reluctance grew at every step down the stairs into the basement where the new boy was held, but go there he must. He reached the bolted door much too soon, opening it with a heavy heart.

It wasn’t a nice cell, small and cramped, dark and damp as any basement space would be, but the house slaves had obviously done their best to make it as comfortable as possible for the boy. He had a thick mattress to sleep on and several blankets to keep warm, a pillow even. Plenty of good food, too, though it didn’t look like he had touched much of it. Pin frowned at this. Eat while you can, you little fool, he thought. 

The boy looked up at him as Pin raised the lit lantern he’d brought a little higher and walked inside. His eyes were large and scared, tears not yet dried on his cheeks. They were blue. Amazingly blue!

“Can… can I come out now,” he asked. “Please?”

Pin frowned. “No!” he coldly informed him. “Don’t worry, you won’t be here for long,” he added at the boy’s crestfallen look at this denial. He couldn’t refrain from trying to comfort, even though the boy’s release from this cell meant his own doom. 

He frowned again, at himself this time. He had to be harder. He _had_ to! 

“Who are you?” the boy asked. 

“Me? Oh, I’m just the current whore of this house, and you, it seems, is the next!” 

The boy looked up at him in shock. 

“You do know what a bed slave does, don’t you?” Pin asked, not able to keep the contempt out of his voice. The boy might be a virgin, but he couldn’t be _that_ innocent, could he?

The boy slowly nodded, but the information still didn’t seem to make sense to him. “But,” he said. “They’re… _girls_!”

Pin couldn’t help it, he laughed. “Oh my goodness…” he managed. “Aren’t you well versed in the facts of life, already? Yes, yes, whores and bed slaves are girls, _mostly_! But _masters_ are always free men, and free men… they fuck whatever the hell they like, including boys as pretty as you.”

The boy gaped, eyes ever widening, but then he snarled at him instead. “You’re _lying_! I- I know how men and women do… ‘it’. Boys don’t have a- a… hole. How could a man do… _that_ to you?”

Pin sighed deeply, crouched down before the boy and held up the lantern so they could look each other closely in the eyes. “You _do_ have a hole, boy. Think about it. Think closely about it.”

The boy frowned, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion, but then he obviously realized what Pin was talking about, as his eyes again widened and his mouth opened. “No,” he said. “No, really? Doesn’t… Doesn’t that hurt?”

Pin closed his eyes for just a second; he had to be hard; he _had_ to! He opened them again, to look gravely into the boy’s eyes. “Yes!” he said. “It hurts!” 

It wasn’t entirely true. Not anymore. Pin had been fucked for so many years, he had learnt long ago how to prepare yourself well and float away in your head for maximum relaxation. Besides, in spite of the fact his master was quite well endowed, he did not consider physical pain a desirable part of the act and was usually moderately careful. The few times the man weren’t, he gave him plenty of time to recuperate. What use was there in explaining this, though? The boy would hurt in the beginning no matter what! He might as well be prepared for the brutal truth of it.

The boy’s only reaction was to hide his face in his hands and start to cry in fear and despair, begging Pin to help him. 

Pin couldn’t help it, all his anger and bitterness of this cursed day rose to the surface at the boy’s pathetic tears, and it was only fearing his master, which stopped him from slapping him. 

“Help you?” he yelled, standing up. “I can’t help you. How could I help you? Do you _know_ what we are? Were you so fucking spoiled by your former owner you think there’s anyone who can help you? You think I didn’t cry when they first trained me, you think I didn’t hurt? There was fucking no one there to help me, and there’s no one here to help you either. In fact… You’re lucky; you understand that? You’re fucking _lucky_! You think I was left to be innocent as long as you? You think I had the luxury of being trained in a private home, having an older bed slave tell me the truth of things and prepare me? I was trained in a fucking whorehouse, and the time _I_ first found out in which fucking hole they take you was when they fucking took me in that hole, _for the first fucking time_!” 

The boy only cried harder at this, and for a moment, it made him even angrier, but then… It went away. Pin just stood there, looking down on the weeping boy, with the painful realization that he was being a monster, worse than his master, and…

Oh, damn, his master had warned him of scaring the boy off it, and look what he had done. He’d scared him off it! Regret and guilt now mingled with a serious fear of severe punishment and he fell to his knees on the mattress next to the boy and took him in his arms. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. It _was_ bad for me, but I shouldn’t have told you that. I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to scare you! It doesn’t at all have to be that way for you, for some, it’s not all bad. It gets better too, in time, as you learn. I _will_ help you, I will. I’ll teach you all I know, as much as Master will allow me, and show you all the tricks. It’ll be fine, I promise. I promise…”

**\-----o0o-----**

He’d spent hours with the boy, comforting him, talking to him, convincing him it would be all right, and it was clear his master was displeased with his long absence. According to the loudly ticking clock on his master’s desk, he’d been kneeling on the hard floorboards in the study for over an hour now, and the man was yet to acknowledge his existence with as much as a single glance.

On behalf of his sore knees, he let his hate elevate to a dangerously high level at this. 

Pin stole glances at the man flipping through documents at a leisurely pace over at the desk, now and then grabbing a quill to make a note in the margins. His master, the wealthy merchant! Influential in their city, and beyond, with powerful friends everywhere. A beautiful family he had, too. Two pretty little daughters with his new young wife, and an adult son with a previous one, who was already a man of standing in his own right, recently going into politics and being quite successful at it, With the help of his father’s extensive network and deep coffers, of course. He was handsome, too, his master, tall, broad of shoulders, fit and strong still in his fifties. Graying temples looked distinguished on _him_. 

An admirable man, no doubt, but to Pin… he was just a _fucking bastard_ , and today so more than ever before. He would never forgive his master for forcing him to take part in the corruption of that poor boy in the basement. Never! 

Finally, his master pushed the papers aside and addressed him. “Rise and approach!” he ordered. 

Pin obeyed, with some difficulty, stumbling up to the desk on legs that had gone numb from the prolonged uncomfortable position, and frowning at how his bony knees cracked and popped. 

“You talked long with the boy,” his master remarked.

“Yes, Master.”

“Can I safely assume then he is now well informed?”

Pin bitterly pressed out the wanted answer. “Yes, Master. The boy has been… sufficiently informed of… everything.”

“Good, good… I see _you_ are still disapproving, though.”

“It… I… It’s not my place to approve or disapprove….”

No, of course it’s not your damn place to disapprove, but you still do, don’t you?”

Pin had no words to deny the accusation. He wished his master would stop playing these games with him, and just punish him already. 

His master did no such thing, his angry scowl only changed into a smug smile. “I do believe you’re jealous!” he said. 

Jealous? _Jealous_! Pin nearly choked on his own indignant gasp. Of all the condescending things the man had ever said to him… Pin might never have experienced true affection and closeness to another, but he was still whole enough a human being to know that whatever feelings transpired between himself and the man that owned him – none of them warranted any kind of _jealousy_ on his part! 

Never before had he felt such an urge to slap that smug grin off his master’s face, but, of course, he wouldn’t. A slave showing aggression, even in words, toward a free person would end up on a scaffold before the day was over, as surely as that the sun would set behind that scaffold, and – strangely enough – Pin was not prepared to die just yet. 

It proved a struggle to find the words to dissuade his master of this notion without risking ending up on said scaffold. “It… I… That’s… That’s not… Master, I… I was born in a whorehouse, I do not want to die in one, that… that is all.”

His master still smiled, but some of the smugness did go away. “Your little head, so full of calculation… You’re thinking, ‘I was young quite a while ago, my master replaces me my options are few and bleak. I might dislike my master, but he is only one man with one cock. I go back to the whorehouse, there’ll be ten cocks an hour all day long, and they will all pay the madam so little they can well afford to give her a few pennies extra if they damage the rear end of me’. Is that what you fear?”

“If- if you know what I fear, Master, then why are you playing with me like this. You’re keeping me only so I can train my own replacement? Please, make short order of it, and- and discard me today!” 

His master laughed and shook his head. “Normally I’d concede you’re quite a clever man, at least for a slave, but today you are being an idiot. You are wrong, on all accounts. Were you a child when I bought you? No, you weren’t. Small as you are, you were still a twenty-year-old _man_. Do you think I would have chosen a man, if I child is what I really wanted? Why would you think I’d want a sniveling scared little runt like that serving me when I could enjoy such a sourpuss as you on a daily basis?”

Pin scowled at his master in confusion. What? 

The man still chuckled and guffawed. “I did not buy the boy for myself. He’s a gift. A very special gift, to a young lord that I have reason to believe will become a very valuable ally to my son in the future. Such an important contact, a cousin to the king, no less, you can’t very well just bring a bottle of wine on his birthday, now can you? No, those golden locks are for the lord, and I, simple man with humble habits that I am, will have to make do with your dark mop, and disapproving scowls!”

Pin gaped. The boy was not his replacement? He wouldn’t be thrown out of the house? Sold to face an unknown but undoubtedly harsh destiny? He was safe? He was _safe_! Oh, thank the gods; he was safe! He was so relieved; he was… Angry! He was so _fucking angry_! At that moment, it took all he had, not to open his mouth and yell at the man in front of him. His master had known this all along, and yet he couldn’t have taken one measly second to assure him? No, of course he couldn’t have, because the obvious way in which his current bed slave would misinterpret that boy’s arrival here, would amuse his evil heart much too much! 

Why would he care if a slave spent a day in utter fear and anxiety if he had a chance to play such a ‘funny’ prank on him? Besides, maybe he _hadn’t_ helped corrupt the boy for his master then, but he’d still been forced to help corrupt the child for _someone_ , and he would still never forgive the bastard for that. 

He was so angry that he shook, fighting tears of frustration he hadn’t shed since he was a small boy, but he doubted his powerless rage was the reason his master’s amusement finally seemed to have an end. 

The man stopped chuckling and looked at him seriously, even giving up a small sigh. “Well, you are wrong in more ways than one today, slave. Your future, should I tire of you, are in fact not as bleak as you think. I’ve had an offer for you.”

An offer? This piece of information surprised him enough that his anger drained away and he looked up at his master in astonishment. “A- a… an offer?”

“Yes, indeed. Someone is actually very interested in you and has been nagging me for a long time to sell you to him. You are well acquainted with this prospective buyer, as well, I believe, as he’s often a guest in my house.”

Pin’s eyes widened at this. His master and his young wife enjoyed entertaining, and though he did know several of the reoccurring guests by name, he couldn’t recall any of them ever showing real interest in him. Sure, it had happened a few had asked to get to use him – at least it happened with some regularity when he was younger – but they had all been turned down and had never asked a second time. Turned down by his _master_ , that is, himself he had no say in the matter, naturally. 

His master liked to give all who might ask the same standard reply – ‘I beg your pardon, Gentlemen, but there are three things I never share, my toothbrush, my wife, and my bed slave, my wife for obvious reasons and the two others for the simple sake of basic hygiene’. 

It was the only thing Pin had ever been grateful to his master about.

However, he couldn’t imagine any of these men had been interested in him for more than a single night of pleasure. Fuck him, yes, but who would ever want to _buy_ him? “Who… Who could that be then, Master?” he carefully asked. Was this yet another joke?

“Why, it’s our dear old friend, Mr. Bumble, retired lawyer and, apparently – who would have thought – secret connoisseur of young men, judging from how obsessed he seems with you. I’d even go so far as to say the old fool has quite convinced himself he’s in love with you. He’s prepared to pay me a laughably large sum of money for the pleasure of coddling you and spoiling you and put a smile on your face. I’ve told him your lips don’t stretch that way, but he’s convinced he can make you happy and content. Well, I’ve denied him so far.” 

Pin immediately proved his master right, by pressing his lips together in a miserable line and looking down. This _was_ just another joke then. However, his master wasn’t finished.

“I’ve denied him _so far_ , but, in case Bumble is actually right, maybe it’s cruel of me to keep you. Maybe I should let him have you, hmm?”

Again, Pin was left astonished. “M- master?”

“Yes, maybe I should… I tell you what, this one time; I’ll give you a choice. If you think you’ll be less miserable with Bumble, say so, and I’ll seriously consider letting him have you… No, no, don’t tell me now. Think on it! Think on it proper, and let me know tomorrow. For now, you’re dismissed. I still have paperwork to do.”

Pin was still too shocked to feel much of anything now at what he was being told; he simply obeyed, bowed, and left the study.

**\-----o0o-----**

Sitting on his tiny cot that same night, brushing his hair before sleep – his master had not required his presence in _his_ bed tonight – Pin turned the strange offer over in his mind, again and again.

He did know Mr. Bumble. If any free person had the ability to show kindness to slaves at all, Mr. Bumble came awfully close, he supposed. The man had never treated him, or any other slave in the house, badly at any of his visits. He was still very surprised to hear the old retired lawyer was apparently this interested in him. He couldn’t recall the man had ever asked for his sexual services, or having touched him in secret with such intent. Mr. Bumble _was_ very old, though, and maybe didn’t have the ability or the energy for such activities anymore. Maybe he really only did want a pet to coddle, and considered his acquaintant’s gloomy bed slave a challenge that it would amuse him to tickle into a laugh. 

If his master had indeed told him the truth, he would be mad to turn the old man down! He could have a so much better life, and never have to serve sexually again. Maybe his new master wouldn’t even mind if he rounded out a bit, and he could finally fucking _eat_! 

Pin sighed deeply and put away his brush, shaking his head at his own foolishness. It didn’t really matter if his master had told the truth about Mr. Bumble’s interest in him or not, there was still something fishy about this whole thing. 

Since when did his master care about his happiness, or had ever bothered with giving him choices? No, this was a trap for sure! His master hadn’t actually said that he _would_ sell him to Bumble if Pin wanted it; he’d only said he would _consider_ it! No, his evil bastard of a master hadn’t promised him anything, and he wasn’t as stupid as the man seemed to think. 

Besides, no matter how kind Mr. Bumble was, his future would not be safer in his house. The old man was… well, old! He could die any day now, and then the former lawyer’s relatives, who would most likely not have the same silly infatuation with skinny over-aged male whores, would inherit him. They’d get rid of him in a heartbeat. He’d end up at the nearest whorehouse before he’d know it, after all. 

Pin lay down on his cot and pulled the blanket over his head to sleep. He _was_ not a fool and he would not screw up his life.

**\-----o0o-----**

He spent the whole morning with the boy in the basement. It still aggrieved him greatly to be involved in this evil, but he had no other choice than to look at it pragmatically. At least, now that he knew the actual situation, he could give the boy better advice… without taking out his own anger, bitterness and painful memories on someone who wasn’t to blame for any of it.

It was obvious the boy was still both scared and miserable, but he wasn’t as weak as he seemed and he wasn’t stupid either, only inexperienced. He had stopped crying, and listened closely to everything Pin was telling him, obviously resigned to his destiny and determined to do the best of it, in spite of his fears, which Pin also vigorously encouraged. 

He could only hope the boy would be all right.

Pin was still all fired up with hate, resentment and anger as he left the boy and again made for the study at his master’s order, though he did his best to press it down. He knew what he had to do, no matter how much it galled him. 

His master didn’t let him wait this time, but had him rise to his feet soon after he’d knelt down in greeting, the same infuriating smug smile on his lips. 

Pin had a feeling the man wished he would beg to be sold, beg to be given to the kind old man, but not because he actually wanted to be rid of him, but for the pleasure of getting to turn his slave down cruelly, and declare he’d decided not to let Mr. Bumble have him, after all.

Well, in that case, he was glad to bereave his master of today’s amusement.

“All right,” his master started. “I’m sure you have yesterday’s conversation in fresh memory. Have you thought about Mr. Bumble’s offer?”

“Yes, Master!”

“And…?”

It galled him, it did. Only thinking the words created a bitter taste in his mouth and made his lips curl in distaste. “I... I would ask of you, Master, to- to please let me stay here.” 

His master’s eyebrows rose in apparent surprise. “You’d rather remain in my service, you say?”

“Yes, Master… Please.”

If Pin had hoped for a disappointed face before him, that the man would be annoyed at having had his clever joke ruined, he was in his turn disappointed. The man’s face instead twisted into the smuggest grin Pin had ever seen, his master practically glowing with malicious glee. 

“Well, well,” he said, stepping closer and reaching a hand out to touch his face in mocking mimicry of affection. “I never knew my little Pin to hold such affection for his master. How good you have been all these years at hiding your love for me.”

Love? _Love_! Pin didn’t know if it was the use of this particular word, the pleased look on his master’s face, or simply the accumulation of the added hate and resentment within him since the golden-locked boy had been brought here, but he simply snapped! 

“Love?” he yelled, recoiling from his master’s hand on his cheek. “How dare you speak of love? There isn’t a positive feeling humans are capable of that I have _ever_ felt for you! There aren’t enough words in any language to express how little affection I hold for you. I _hate_ you, I hate you with every fiber of my being, and I will fucking hate you until my _last fucking breath_!”

For a moment, following this outburst, there was complete silence in the room, an ominous silence that seemed to last forever. The utter dread and terror that spread within seemed to take the same eternity to engulf him and penetrate him, making sure he felt it to the core of his being. 

Yelling in anger and hate at a free person meant the harshest possible punishment, and oh, he’d be made to regret his finishing words now. His ‘last breath’, he was convinced, would only be hours away. 

His master stared at him grimly, his eyes as flint, his lips a straight strict line, saying nothing, while Pin was so full of dread he was as if frozen in place and couldn’t even find the wits about him to fall to his knees and beg for his life, or even avert his eyes. Begging wouldn’t help anyway, there was no mercy to be given for this, and his master would call the steward any second now, to give the order of his execution.

Pin thought he was hallucinating when, instead, his master’s cold expression slowly transformed before him – into a smile. A smug, teasing and highly amused… smile! His master stepped close once again, and caressed his cheek anew. “…and a whole lot of good it does you!” the man said, chuckling. 

Confused, Pin finally moved to look down and go to his knees, but his master’s caress turned into a crushing hold around his jaw, forcing him to both stay on his feet and look his master in the eyes. “So, that’s how it is, eh?” he said. “Well, I suggest you curb your tongue a bit better in the future, as I would be loath to cut it out. Do you understand?”

“Y- yes... yes, Master…” he managed. 

“Good! Then, as we’ve come to the agreement you are to stay here, I will turn Mr. Bumble down for the last time as soon as I see him, and with this, you are dismissed. Go!”

Pin shook so badly he was just barely able to obey, stumbling toward the door, as soon as his master let go of the harsh grip, but he was halted on the doorstep by his master’s voice. 

“I will see you in my bed tonight, slave,” the man ordered. “Brush your hair to a shine, and wear nothing, but your prettiest trinkets.”

He couldn’t turn around and face the man, he just couldn’t. “Y-yes, Master,” he said. 

He heard the hummed tune behind him as he fled the room. 

“Little boy, little boy, fitting on a pin. Fitting on the head, on the head of a pin! On the head of a… pi-in!”

**\-----o0o-----**

He was sore after. Not too badly torn, or bleeding… much, thankfully, but very, very sore, which was highly unpleasant in many ways. Ointments could only sooth his abused backside so much, coming visits to the outhouse would be torture, and he would walk funny for a few days, no doubt, bruises already blooming on his hips. He was still exhausted enough, though, prostrated on his cot, trying to sleep through the throbbing, not to work up any harder feelings about it.

Pin had thought the harsh fuck a sort of punishment at first, but his master really hadn’t acted angrily in bed tonight. Quite the contrary, he’d seemed… invigorated, and simply too aroused to be careful. 

Yes, it was actually as if their exchange in the study earlier had made his master hornier than ever and inspired him to feats in bed of that of a much younger man.

Pin shook his head at this. His master was a fucking bastard, but gods knew if he wasn’t close to mad, as well. What kind of master would be _turned on_ by their slave yelling insults at them in hate, instead of having that slave killed? 

He didn’t know if to be grateful he was still alive – things appearing to be the same, no punishment forthcoming – or even more scared at being in the presence of a lunatic. However, this fear abated with the bitter realization that if his master was mad, then his slave was ever as much so. 

Pin liked to think his reasons for telling his master he did not want to be sold to Mr. Bumble were true to his musings the night before – he had seen through the trap, and Mr. Bumble would only live for so long anyway. However, he now knew the actual reason for wanting to stay here and it might make him the slave that his master deserved, and his master the master that _he_ deserved! 

Mr. Bumble was a kind old man, who would have treated him well, no doubt; would have been good to him, would even have spoiled him, and it would have made no difference whatsoever. Pin would have hated _him_ just as much! 

The truth of it all was that he was damaged, inside and out, and no longer capable of anything else. _All_ free people, good or otherwise, were his enemies, and he could stand their kindness just as badly as he could stand their cruelty. He wanted nothing from them, Mr. Bumble would never get a sincere smile out of him, and the requirement to hide his true feelings would either burn him up inside in the end, or make him snap again! If he didn’t manage to hide it properly, Mr. Bumble would probably punish him even more cruelly than others would, only for thinking his goodness had been rejected and betrayed. 

To a slave, good people were ever as dangerous as bad ones!

His master knew this about him, and, it was clear to him now, had always known it! His master didn’t care. Why, Pin was not entirely sure, but something in his master took perverted pleasure in his heated hate and dislike. The man would obviously not tolerate too open displays of this, or outright disobedience, especially not in the presence of others, but it didn’t bother him in the least that those feelings were constantly there, ill concealed, brewing under the surface, and showing in his eyes. 

Maybe it made the man feel powerful, though why he would need this kind of confirmation of a power that was a given anyway, Pin didn’t know. Maybe too much submission and admiration simply bored him. The man sure had enough yaysayers around him. Maybe he simply appreciated the honesty of it all, even if it was honest hate rather than love, appreciated the passion of Pin’s feelings, even if they were negative. It was obvious that he found great amusement in goading these feelings closer to the surface, with his cruel pranks, playing stupid games with a helpless slave, excited to goad him to the limit, while not quite pushing him over it.

Well, tonight, the man had pushed his slave over the limit, and he probably had not quite meant to. If someone else had overheard his outburst, his master would have been forced to send him to the scaffold, or lose face. 

Pin swallowed hard, he must be more careful. Now that he finally knew the game, he would play it well. If he did, there would be no reason he would ever have to leave this house, and his aging face and graying hair would not matter. It wouldn’t be much of a bother, he told himself, as he would have these feelings in any case. He only had to control himself better, to his master’s perverted amusement, and his own relative safety. 

Yes, what he had really done today was to ask to stay here simply because his master was the only free man that would ever allow him to hate.

…and hate was the only precious thing he had!


End file.
